Another “the science is settled” moment. From the ABC:
A new US-led study, featuring research by Tasmanian scientists, has concluded that warming ocean temperatures over the past 50 years are largely a man-made phenomenon.
Researchers from America, India, Japan and Australia say the study is the most comprehensive look at how the oceans have warmed.
The study, published today in the journal Nature Climate Change, examined a dozen different models used to project climate change, and compared them with observations of ocean warming over the past 50 years.
It found natural variations accounted for about 10 per cent of rising temperatures, but man-made greenhouse gases were the major cause.
One of the report’s co-authors, Hobart-based Dr John Church, is the CSIRO Fellow with the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research.
He told AM the study was one of the most comprehensive looks into the changes in ocean heat to date, “by quite some margin”.
Dr Church said the breadth of the study had “allowed the group to rule out that the changes are related to natural variability in the climate system”.
He said there was simply no way the upper layers of every ocean in the world could have warmed by more than 0.1 degrees Celsius through natural causes alone.
“Natural variability could only explain 10 per cent, or thereabouts, of the observed change,” he said.
Professor Nathan Bindoff is one of the world’s foremost oceanography experts, and has been a lead author on past Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment reports.
“Ninety per cent of the temperature change stored in the whole of the Earth’s system is stored in the ocean, so global warming is really an ocean warming problem,” he said.
Professor Bindoff said the new research balanced the man-made impacts of warming greenhouse gases and cooling pollution in the troposphere against natural changes in the ocean’s temperature and volcanic eruptions.
“This paper’s important because, for the first time, we can actually say that we’re virtually certain that the oceans have warmed, and that warming is caused not by natural processes, but by rising greenhouse gases primarily.”
And he described the evidence of global warming as unequivocal.
“We did it. No matter how you look at it, we did it. That’s it,” he said.
Full story: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-11/research-taps-into-ocean-temperatures/4063886
h/t to reader Mick Muller
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
BS Alert.
“This paper’s important because, for the first time, we can actually say that we’re virtually certain that the oceans have warmed, and that warming is caused not by natural processes, but by rising greenhouse gases primarily.”
“First time” – odd I thought the warming oceans had been known about before??
“virtually certain” – oh, like being virtually pregnant??
“greenhouse gases primarily” – so what are the secondary causes and what proportion of the 0.1 is from the other causes??
cheers David
He said there was simply no way the upper layers of every ocean in the world could have warmed by more than 0.1 degrees Celsius through natural causes alone.
Well on our way to Hansen’s boiling oceans then! I wonder how long the next 0.1 degree will take. I can throw off my wetsuit by 2350 at this rate.
Climate models,blah, blah, Virtually certain, blah blah. ALL the Oceans blah, blah. Renowned IPCC scientist, blah, blah. I suppose I should read the paper but better minds than mine will rip it to shreds. My BS indicator is hammering the top stop. That is enough for me. After reading Willis’ work on Argo it does not take much to call 0.1 degree as BS. Please join this one Lazy teenager I could do with some more laughs.
Proving surface warming would be one thing. Proving linkage to any specific cause would be something else entirely. I hope people insist on the kind of rigor that a causality claim like this would require, which would be exceptional, and beyond anything I can imagine. Simply saying that there’s energy here that we can’t account for in any other way would not be sufficient.
Gerry Parker
“examined a dozen different models used to project climate change,”
Well, that’s enough for that “study”
(DEAR MODERATOR, please I request you not to remove my comment if you want the solution to the CC.)
Dear ANTHONY WATTS,
1. “…but man-made greenhouse gases were the major cause….”
How can freely moving molecules of gases form a green house? It can’t. So green house gases are NOT possible to exist. Can you explain how your statement can be justified scientifically? That statement is ridiculous scientifically. Troposphere is not layered, it is homogenous; if layered the heaviest gas, co2, would be the lower most layer. Details in devbahadurdongol.blogspot.com
2. “Ninety per cent of the temperature change stored in the whole of the Earth’s system is stored in the ocean, so global warming is really an ocean warming problem,” he said.”
Ocean is warming no doubt but land surface is warming much higher, concretes and blacktops are absorbing the heat but disturbing cooling system; we have disturbed the cooling system of Nature (evaporation and rain) by urbanization, deforestation, and desert formations. One of the main reasons for temperature of the ocean is the draining millions of tons of warm if not hot water by developed countries.
I challenge you to have discussion on GW. If you like you may email me. dev.dangol@yahoo.co.uk
DEAR MODERATOR, please I request you not to remove my comment if you want the solution to the CC.
[Reply: Anthony Watts does not have the time to answer individual email correspondence. ~dbs, mod.]
From the abstract:
“Recent identification of systematic instrumental biases in expendable bathythermograph data has led to improved estimates of ocean temperature variability and trends and provide motivation to revisit earlier detection and attribution studies. We examine the causes of ocean warming using these improved observational estimates, together with results from a large multimodel archive of externally forced and unforced simulations. The time evolution of upper ocean temperature changes in the newer observational estimates is similar to that of the multimodel average of simulations that include the effects of volcanic eruptions. Our detection and attribution analysis systematically examines the sensitivity of results to a variety of model and data-processing choices. When global mean changes are included, we consistently obtain a positive identification (at the 1% significance level) of an anthropogenic fingerprint in observed upper-ocean temperature changes, thereby substantially strengthening existing detection and attribution evidence.”
Paper here: http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1553.html
“examined a dozen different models used to project climate change, and compared them with observations of ocean warming”
Proof positive that the “models” say that humans are causing warming.
This is proof of nothing.
Yes I can see where he is virtually certain, that is what is called an escape clause in case we find out he is not fully convinced of his own findings. Much like evry other report we have seen from the warmers.
No matter how you look at it the report is nothing but fluff and weasel words designed to blackmail us into believing his findings. Maybe he should get some tips from Flim Flam Flannery on how to better word his press releases.
The atmosphere has a mass of : 1.5 x 10 to the p18 tonns compared to the oceans of 5×10 to the p15 tonns so that the oceans have a greater heat capacity by 3,300 times. So it is almost impossible for the atmosphere to exert a significant heating effect on the the oceans. For to heat one litre of water by 1 deg C will take 3300 litres of air that was 2 Deg C hotter or 1 liter of air that was 3300 deg C hotter.
I would propose everyone should read some real science that did not use models in the
Journal of Geophysical Research, VOL. 113, A11101, 13 PP., 2008 doi:10.1029/2007JA012989
Using the oceans as a calorimeter to quantify the solar radiative forcing by
Nir J. Shaviv of Racah Institute of Physics, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Giv’at Ram, Jerusalem, Israel
available here: http://www.sciencebits.com/files/articles/CalorimeterFinal.pdf in PDF
Of course Nir Shaviv used a scientific approach whereas these climate ‘scientists’ were generating models based on your hypothesis then training them to match the observations then checking the observations against the models so therefore your hypothesis must be right.
He said there was simply no way the upper layers of every ocean in the world could have warmed by more than 0.1 degrees Celsius through natural causes alone.
Did he explain how the oceans managed to warm in the past when we weren’t around?
Thought not.
I still can’t take anything that climate ‘scientists’ say very seriously.
“He said there was simply no way the upper layers of every ocean in the world could have warmed by more than 0.1 degrees Celsius through natural causes alone.”
And the error bars are what; +/- 0.3C? +/-0.0025C?
Color me Sk(c)eptical.
“we’re virtually certain”
I love the ‘certainty’ of that…
Is this the paper in question?
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/pdf/nclimate1553.pdf
I guess these macaroons have never studied the transport of heat in the oceans. Conveyer-belt? Yeah we have heard of it. Isn’t that when we ask a lady to disrobe and she takes off her belt and gives it to us?
My rough estimate tells me that the amount of CO2 mass released by man is roughly the equivalent ( oceans and atmosphere): Olympic sized swimming pool filled with ping pong balls; 1
to 2 pink ones for 39 million of blue ones if you take the oceans into the mass of the atmosphere. I could be wrong with the numbers? Please oblige me?
Gee that CO2 plant food stuff, must be a really deadly powerful poison to make all those other ping pong balls start to glow red. Must be the feedback, lol, really, one to two to 39 million will upset the
balance?
You did it, all right.
Starting the clock until this has been fully debunked just like all the other major papers recently.
The production of this article was clearly provoked by zombies. We have run numerous models and there is no other plausible explanation for this silliness. Therefore it must be zombies. We did it. We proved it.
Moderator: do I really have to add the /sarc?
Is it really wise to lump the pre ARGO data in with post ARGO data and expect a good result? Reading their methodology they infilled missing data in a grid fashion – i swear i just read recently on WUWT how futile that was…
Also, if our GHG,s account for 90% of the warming, which as I read it, is about 0.9 degrees, between 1960 and 2010, what miraculous natural phenomenon suddenly had the oceans stop warming in the last decade?
Why not: “Here’s what we did, here’s what we conclude, what do you think?”
Instead we get: …he described the evidence of global warming as unequivocal.
“We did it. No matter how you look at it, we did it. That’s it,” he said.
A most unscientific attitude!
So, there’s no possible way a reduction in clouds could allow the Sun to warm the oceans? This kind of silly nonsense will only make more people doubt their statements.
Where on earth are they getting their facts from? Do they have some top secret source that isn’t available to anyone else but them? To answer my own question I say they are pulling their facts from where the sun don’t shine. It is call the practice of ( proctocranialogy).
Wolf!
Pure boilerplate (“most comprehensive study”, “unequivocal”), but they left out the much-loved ‘near to a tipping point’ and ‘must act now’.
Note to Bindoff: You’re whistling, but the dog’s out of range.